MILITANTS belonging to several peasant groups in the province capped the weeklong hunger strike Friday with a big rally at the Fountain of Justice outside Bacolod's City Hall.
The group called on the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to deliver the land reform programs that the farmers had fought for decades already.
The group includes the Karapatan-Negros, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), Akbayan, Gabriela Women's Party, Kabataan party-list, and National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) who rallied at the busy Araneta Street Friday afternoon.
KMP-Negros spokesperson Ronald Ian Evidente said: "The government remains to be dumb, blind, and cripple towards the issue of land reforms; thus extending the suffering and struggle of the poor and less prioritized farmers in the uplands."
"The government refused to deliver what is supposed to be for the people because some of the landowners are also officials themselves or, perhaps, of the big money involved to garbage the land reform program" said Evidente.
Karapatan-Negros secretary general Fred Caña, on the other hand, said: "We are tired of the promises that the government had promises the poor farmers, it is time to perform."
Caña also believed that some of the electoral candidates may use land reform as their political platform for the May 10, 2010, but will only forget it once elected.
Friday's rally was the closing of the hunger strike that the peasant groups held this week that they had started Monday outside of the Provincial Capitol.